Microsoft has confirmed that Zune players will no longer be produced, but the software is available for WP7

Microsoft has pronounced its Zune players dead, but its software shall live on in Windows Phone 7.

Earlier this year, Microsoft terminated its Zune originals devices. Yesterday, it removed the Zune HD from its website entirely, then later said it was an accident.

Now, it has been confirmed by Microsoft that the Zune HD has seen its last days as well, ending the Zune player lineup entirely.

"We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy, and that we will no longer be producing Zune players," said Microsoft on its Zune support page. "So what does this mean for our current Zune users? Absolutely nothing. Your device will continue to work with Zune services just as it does today. And we will continue to honor the warranties of all devices for both current owners and those who buy our very last devices. Customer service has been, and will remain a top priority for us."

Microsoft is currently looking to port Zune HD applications to Windows Phone and promote WP7 as an all-in-one device rather than sell stand-alone MP3 players. Back in February 2011, the company also mentioned rebranding Zune into Windows Live services.

Microsoft's move to kill off Zune players is similar to Apple's recent decision to get rid of its iPod Classic. Apple is looking to kill its platter-based hard drive devices for gadgets with flash-based memory.

Mobile devices aren't really going to need much device side storage. I recently got Google music, uploaded my entire music collection and can play it from pretty much anywhere. But it's not like Google is unique here, every major player has some sort of cloud base and it's getting easier and easier to upload any and all music.

Music now, dvd quality video for cloud use is coming very soon. Upload all your dvd's, watch them anywhere, anytime, eventually making optical media somewhat obsolete.

Did anyone guess the stand alone MP3 player would die before CD players? =D

You can do a hybrid approach:Haven't really messed with Google Music, but with Amazon you can stream from the cloud or download onto your device. It's pretty easy to keep some favorites or a new movie locally, and then switch things out when you are on wifi.

You're gonna bust your download limit fast with this option (may be not yours, but average Joe's new limit, certainly).

Advantage with microsoft's zune pass is that you download them on your computer, then sync with your device, or just download them on your device, but it stays there and you don't have to stream it again. Streaming is an option too just like others, but i still prefer the 32GB memory card full of music option.

I'm not saying your wrong but I don't feel like the mobile networks speeds are up to snuff for constant streaming tasks. I've attempted to use Spotify from my Android phone a number of times in my car to varying degrees of success. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it cuts out every so often, and sometime it is simply unusable. Not to mention the music being interrupted by regular email and text message beeps. Also as other have mentioned the cell phone carriers are hungrily laying in wait with bandwidth overage fees. A few years from now these problems will be solved but I'm certainly not trading in my dedicated music player anytime soon.

Stand alone MP3 players have their place. I would not want to drain the battery on my phone when listening to music. The sound quality of stand alone players also tend to be much better than what's available on the phone, even the precious iPhone (which shares the same mediocre sound quality of the iPod).